The Content of His Hairballs
by The Cheshire Cheese
Summary: "You can tell a lot about a man's character by the content of his hairballs." Elgin and Priscilla have a conversation at the pub. The cat delves into tales of the two most extraordinary things he's coughed up, and then some.


**A/N: This scene is set some time after Rango defeats Rattlesnake Jake and the Mayor. It's also a sequel to my story "Little-Eared Aye-Aye," but you do not have to read that story to understand this one.  
**

**I do not own "Rango."**

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"I coughed up a pellet t'day."

Priscilla took a long slurp of her Cactus Flower Pollen (the non-intoxicating stuff that Burford the frog bartender served to kids).

Next to her, Elgin shifted on his stool. His lamp-gold feline eyes moved in her direction, but the rest of his face was placid.

"That so." The gray cat finally grunted, taking a swig of his Cactus juice. "I wasn't aware rodents coughed up pellets."

"Well that's just the thing Mr. Elgin. Turns out I'm not full-blooded rodent after all. My daddy's a crow."

The cat fiddled with his mustache as he took in this bit of news. The first crow who came to his mind was Wounded Bird, the recently appointed Deputy of Dirt, an old Crow Indian (har, har). Actually, Priscilla was awfully good friends with W.B. Elgin's eyes widened just for a moment, as he put two and two together. Then he muttered, "Figures."

Turning back to the young hybrid, Elgin said, "So ya coughed up yer first pellet. Is that some sort of coming of age ritual for a young Crow warrior?"

Priscilla almost jumped out of her stool. "Wow, you put that together real fast Mr. Elgin! But just fer' future reference, I think it's considered 'fencive ta mock the sacred rituals of a First Nations culture. 'Least according to what I read up in the library this morning."

"We got a library?"

"'Parently. A lot of the books got holes in 'em though. Librarian's a bookworm. Mr. Mulch, I think he said his name was. Don't git out much."

Elgin made a sound, and they continued their drinks in silence.

They weren't alone in the bar, but they might as well have been. Buford continued tending wiping the counter and serving drinks without saying a word. Other customers drank alone, or carried conversations and card games in low voices.

Priscilla finally broke the silence. "So my first pellet, there was a gold watch, or part of it. I remember eating it on a dare by Huck Finster few weeks back. Forgot all about it. There was also a few bits of dandelion I think."

Elgin looked impressed. After draining his bottle of cactus juice, the cat turned around to face her, adjusting his tattered hat with his paw. "Y'know Miss Priscilla, place I come from we got a saying: you can tell a lot about a man by the contents of his hairballs. Or pellets in your case."

Priscilla's eyes widened. "What sorta' things you find in your hairballs, Mr. Elgin?"

Elgin snorted. "What haven't I found? Well the one that stands out in my mind most, I'd say has to be a tie between the tribe of Pigmies, and the missing boy."

The rodent's eyes bulged even more. "Dead or alive?"

"Alive. Alive and well. This was looong time ago, you were maybe just learning how ta walk. The boy'd been missing for three days. Then, one day, I'm here-in this exact pub-waiting for a date with a very pretty calico. I was damn nervous. I went to that window over there, to use it for a mirror, so I could straighten my bangs up a bit, and curl my mustache kinda like Zorro's. I must've licked myself for half an hour straight, it felt like. Then finally, Bobbie Jo shows, lookin' like a prom queen. I open my mouth to say 'hello,' and instead out comes a hairball almost as big as me! And then it hatches sorta' like an egg, and out comes-well, I don't never say the boy's name, outta respect for him and his family's privacy. But there he was, safe 'n sound. We never did find out how he got in there, but I reckon it happened a few nights before when I was drunk."

"What'd yer girlfriend say?"

"She called me a hero." Elgin said proudly, but then frowned. "Course it was only a week later she left me for a catnip hustler, and took off to Mexico with him." Elgin rapped his paw on the counter, signaling for another bottle of Cactus juice.

"So what was the other one Mr. Elgin, the Pigmies? That's a kinda native tribe, isn't it?"

"It's a term. Maybe offensive, or just scientific, I dunno. But it refers to natives in places like Africa or South of the Border America, who are reeeal short. The guys _I_ coughed up were filed mice." Elgin showed with his paw how high they stood. "Shorter than you! Must've been about twenty or thirty of 'em. All in three hairballs. This was when I was having shots with Fergus and my brother Wilmer, 'round two a.m. I cough hairballs up a lot when I over-drink."

"Were the Pigmy Mice in loin cloths, or like, African toga-thingies?"

"Loin cloths. And little necklaces with snake teeth. Feathers, nose piercings, the whole nine yards. They climbed out 'my hairballs and just stared at me like I had lobsters commin' outta my ears."

"Did they wage war?"

"Naw, they gave us a peace offering of fruit salad, and Wilmer got the idea to soak the fruit in our Cactus Juice, so we all just had us a big party. Anyway, that's the two stories of Elgin Jacobi's greatest hairball achievements."

"Find anything else interesting?" Priscilla asked.

"All kinds of things. Deck o' cards, bottle caps, a single-shot pistol, Indian arrowhead, a glass sli-" Elgin was cut off by a sudden violent coughing attack.

"Mr. Elgin?" Priscilla eyed him with concern. "Y'awlright?"

Amidst his hacking, Elgin managed, "_Yer kiddin' me_!"

The cat leaned over the counter and let the hairball out, mercifully out of sight (except for Buford, who stepped back with a disguised look on his face). Elgin groaned, wiping his mouth with the back of his paw.

Priscilla hesitantly peered over the edge of the counter, followed by several other bar patrons.

Waffles, the young horned lizard, said excitedly, "Is that a fossil?"

Ambrose, the educated British owl, leaned in for a better look. "Why that looks like a trilobite!"

"Cheers," Elgin wheezed, draped over the counter and ready for a cat nap.

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**A/N: Well that was a predictable ending. But it was the kind of predicable where I had no choice, if I didn't do it I'd have kicked myself. **

**The two hairball stories are indeed canon, though I have extrapolated on them. In the movie, when the characters share hairball/pellet stories around the campfire, Elgin says, "I coughed up a whole tribe of Pigmies once. They started lookin' at me weird," to which Fergus the owl says, "I remember them. They was mighty friendly." The story of Elgin finding a mission boy in his hairball was revealed in his character sheet on the DVD extras. I couldn't recall the kid's name, and found no answers online, so I just avoided using it. I also made up Elgin's last name, and his brother.  
**


End file.
